H2O

Hi folks! I thought I'd share some tracks I made a while back with my MIDIbox SID and sammichFM. Enjoy! - H2O. sammichFM Demo Track https://soundcloud.com/h2o-au/sammichFM-demo-track Featuring a sammichFM Computer Brains [H2O Remix] https://soundcloud.com/h2o-au/computer-brains-h2o-remix Featuring a sammichFM, MIDIbox SID, and a GameBoy running LSDJ. (More music at http://www.aaronwaters.net/tracks)

Wow, congratulations on getting that working! I'll be following this project eagerly (although, like you, I think I'll need to order some more parts!)

(I'm assuming you mean DOUT not DIN... and the idea is you want midibox's DOUT to drive your lights. If I'm on the wrong track, just ignore me ;)) Been looking into something similar to this myself, lately. Nothing even tested yet, just a few ideas. More/brighter LEDs = more current. Traditionally, LEDs plug straight into the DOUT shift register (with a current limiting resisitor of course). From what I gather, there's a limit to how much current you can pull through the 74HC595. If you need/want more than that, I hear there's a higher-current version of the chip around. Alternatively, I've been thinking about somehow driving a transistor to isolate the 74HC595 from the LED (haven't had time to try it yet, though). I imagine a simple, non-midibox capacitor circuit could do your fades without having to resort to a messy midibox-driven PWM. Something similar to these perhaps. Hope this helps!

Any two-pixel variation is likely to be my fault ;)

Try the same scales (see attached). Sounds like some nice sounds you've found there

Just some random thoughts to throw out there... (feel free to ignore! ;D) DMX output - why separate audio and visual sequencing? I gather speed and memory was the main issue with DMX in the past. (Let's be honest, we all love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtnUMpykQLc!) SEQ scratching - scratch / jog / across a pattern (unless of course you already can, I haven't built one... yet!) Big colour LCDs - would take a bit of GUI programming though MIDI over WLAN - hey, why not think crazy Love the idea of channel names. I'm wondering where and how they could be displayed. Also love the sound of C! (ASM scares me a bit...;))

Quick link - manual is at http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/manuals/vegaspro Good section (Appendix A) on what you can/can't do with a generic controller...

...Oh yeah ;D Of course, that should do the trick.

For months, I thought rotary encoders were mysterious, until I read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_encoder They just work in 2-bit binary. What you want to do is convert the binary numbers to up/down signals, or a number, or maybe something else. Should be easy enough to do any of these conversions with some custom PC software. Not sure if a non-Midibox pure-electronics conversion exists or is easy... :-\

Assuming you mean a computer-program that monitors hacked keystrokes on a computer-keyboard... You may have trouble hacking the hardware - keyboards are actually scanning matrices, and the keyboard firmware & OS usually do strange things when lots of keys are pressed at once. Wikipedia has a surprising amount of info on keyboard guts, well worth a read. :D (Also, a few people around here have done the opposite - feeding C64 keyboards into MIDIBox; try searching that, you might find it interesting or it might give you some ideas)

Oh no... Sounds like yet another front-panel redesign... I think I've lost count! ;D My only question is - how bright are they? The impression I'm getting is that they may be a little washed out...? (Those multicoloured straight ones look nice, too)

:D I love this kind of supposedly 'impossible' stuff! (Yet to successfully do it myself though... ;)) I'm not familiar with MBLC, or how it's meant to interact with a PC, but it seems to me that you'd somehow need to send the name over MIDI. If you were into programming, you could (theoretically) send the name to the CORE as a series of midi messages, and have some custom CORE program interpret it and display it. But that sounds very messy to me. Personally, I'd cut out the middle-man and run an LCD (possibly a second one?) direct from the PC's parallel port. Have that one dedicated to feedback from the PC that would be too troublesome to send via midi (patch names, numbers, etc). There's lots around the net on how to do that. Then you could build whatever MIDIBox you want for the control surface. I reckon your biggest challenge will be grabbing this 'name' out of the host to begin with. That'll probably depend on how your VST host works, where it stores patch names, how it interacts with midi, etc. Otherwise, you could always avoid the problem entirely by running a tiny LCD monitor (e.g. ~8") off VGA, I've seen some of those around for pretty cheap. Anyway, best of luck with it!

WOW! That sounds amazing. I so want one. Or maybe four. But I should probably finish my base MBSID first... :D I'm super inspired by this, thank you so much TK!

Nice. +3 :) This chip sounds cool. I'm keen to see the specs, I suppose they'll be released eventually?

Thanks for your help everyone! It's reassuring to know I haven't just stuffed it up somewhere. ;D The default patch generally sounds great, it's only when I start mucking around with the sound it that the clicking becomes audible. A bit of reverb, EQ, delay and a drum beat tend to drown out the click anyway ;). Once I get the control surface working properly and install some backsticks, I'll have a go at all the sound parameters, that may improve performance as well, or just make it less noticable. (I might also have a look at the midi stream, make sure my sequencer's not doing anything weird with volumes, controls and such...) Will keep you posted if there's any changes or I make any startling discoveries, but for now it all looks good. I installed one, noticed no change in performance, then removed it and tried the next. I've now just gone back to my original design.

Yeah, sorry should have mentioned. The caps for the 7809s are in as per the SID modules. The caps for the CORE module are also in, even though the 7805 is bypassed. The scope I was using (screenshot above) was just a recording through my sound card, I don't have a proper scope. (Would it be safe to plug the 14V power supply into my sound card?) Also, I've tried 2200uF, 10uF and 330nF caps (individually) between 14V and 0V, with no change in performance.

Yep, all grounded. I'll have another check over all the grounding though. EDIT: Grounding all seems good. Audio out 'ground' is up by around .01V, grounding that out doesn't help the problem though. I do notice a very slight drop in the input voltage whilst the synth is playing; but then it has quite a large natural drift anyway... :-\

Hi everyone! Got an issue with my new MBSID that I'd like advice on. I got a bunch of kits from SmashTV and some 6582s from Wilba (thanks guys!). 2 SIDs are hooked up and making sound (very exciting), with 6 more to come. Trouble is, they're making too much sound! I'm getting some strange (and annoying) low-pitch clicks during note-on and note-off. I've attached a picture which shows the click waveforms. I tried using several oscillators and no oscillators (via NRPN 32) and it's always there. My best guess is that it has something to do with my PSU. I couldn't find a C64 power pack, so I put one together myself. I was surprised that it actually worked at all! ;D I'm just using a DC adapter power pack, thought I would get all sorts of nasty hiss and hum from it, but it seems work quite well. It's running at around 14V, with 7809s on each of the SID boards and a low-noise DC-DC converter dropping it down to 5V for the core electronics. The thing is, there are no capacitors at all to speak off. I've haven't got much of an idea when it comes to power supplies, but the waveforms suggest to me that I need a voltage buffer of some sort. My multimeter isn't telling me much, except perhaps for a very small voltage drop in the power adaptor whilst the note's down. So my questions to the MidiBox experts are: 1) Could capacitors help with this (am I even on the right track?) 2) If so, what capacitors would be recommended? Thanks.